26.03.2009 Time to update your Project Management Approach?

With recent revisions of PRINCE2® in final draft and PMBOK® (now V4) published its time to review your own company Project Management Methodology (PMM) to ensure that you are adopting best practices.

An outline of the Changes:

Every 4 years PMI (PMBOK®) and OGC (PRINCE2®) update their standards to reflect current best practice thinking for delivering projects successfully.

For PMBOK® Updating from V3 and V4 sees the following minor changes:

• The processes decreased from 44 to 42. Deleting two processes and adding two processes. In the procurement Knowledge Area reconfiguring six processes into four processes.

• Creation of a data flow diagram for each process.

• Clarification of the information in the Project Charter and the Project Scope Statement.

• Distinction, for clarity, between the project management plan and project documents used to manage the project.

• Deletion of the process flow diagrams at the beginning of chapters 4-12 replaced with data flow diagrams.

• Employment of a standard approach for discussing requested changes, preventive actions, corrective actions and defect repairs.

• Clear definition of Enterprise Environmental Factors to avoid confusion with Organizational Process Assets.

• Addition of a useful new appendix that addresses key interpersonal skills that a project manager utilizes when managing a project.

For PRINCE2® 2009 the following major changes from PRINCE2® 2005 are in draft:

• Most of the Processes will remain the same with some amendment of the sub-process names and the addition or removal of other sub- processes

• The Planning Process will now become a Theme instead of a Process.

Renaming the Components to be renamed Themes and reduced to seven namely:

• Business Case: The why

• Organisation: The who

• Plans: The what, how and when

• Risk: Managing uncertainty

• Progress: Controlling time and costs

• Quality: Assuring the delivery of fit-for-purpose products

• Issues & Changes: Controlling scope

Introduction of a new section called Principles defined as “A guiding obligation for good practice” containing:

• Business Justification: A PRINCE2® project must have continued business justification

• Roles & Responsibilities: A PRINCE2® project must have defined and agreed roles and responsibilities with an organisation structure that engages the business, user and supplier stakeholder interests.

• Product Focus: A PRINCE2®project must focus on products and their quality.

• Product Focus: A PRINCE2® project must focus on products and their quality.

• Managed by stages: A PRINCE2® project must be planned, baselined, monitored and controlled on a stage-by-stage basis.

• Management of risk: A PRINCE2® project must proactively manage its risk.

• Scaling and tailoring: A PRINCE2® project must decide how to apply the method such that it is scaled and tailored to suit the project’s environment, complexity, importance and risk.

• Learning lessons: A PRINCE2® project must learn from experience.

Updated Appendices to the following:

A. Product Descriptions

B. Governance

C. Roles and Responsibilities

D. Product Based Planning Example

E. Checklist Glossary Further information

There will also be an update to the management products in Appendix A to bring these in line with the new Themes and Principles.

Reduction in the number of Product Descriptions to 26.

In addition to the updated Manual “Managing Successful Projects with PRINCE2®”, there will also be two new guides on how to use PRINCE2® in Practice. Written for their respective audiences “Directing a Project” and “Managing a Project” contain practical guidance on how to use PRINCE2®, how to troubleshoot projects and also cross references to other Bodies of Knowledge.